Goverthing is believed to be the world's oldest top-secret research facility, on Governor's Island, a small island south of Manhatten Island in New York City. The secrecy of the facility has been so important, that it has never appeared on maps.

The facility was created by Dutch colonists in the 1600s, on what was then called Nutten Island, "Nutten" being middle-Dutch for "No Such Agency". The facility was inherited by the English in 1670s, and then by the Americans after 1776. In the mid-1950s, the facility was evacuated and buried under 20 feet of sand.

In 2009, Goverthing was discovered accidentally by construction crews building of a new branch of the Disney World theme park, who came across the buried facility and accompanying village. The discovery was quickly denounced as a hoax and conceptual art project by Belgians in order to cover up Goverthing's existence. Conspiracy theorists claim this was a coverup.

The archaeological dig found what appears to be a snow globe factory, which archaeologists believe to be the main research center. The military purpose is unknown, but many historians have speculated that in the War of 1812, snow globes were used to keep New York City from burning to the ground.

It is believed that researchers at the facility, in an act of desperation after being able to duplicate invisibility experiments by their rivals working on the Philadelphia Experiment buried the facility. A related theory states that experiments in time travel as part of the Montauk Project transported the Goverthing facility from thousands of years in the future into the 1950s.

Another theory is that orders to "bury" the facility---military argot for remove all traces of it's existence---were taken literally. (See military intelligence.)

The statement, "We will bury you", by Nikita Krushchev in 1956, was interpreted as a reference to the burial of Goverthing, and launched the Second Red Scare in the late 1950s.

Otherwise, Goverthing is noteworthy for having no cultural references to it: for example, there are no X-Files documentaries about the facility. It is believed that stories about Area 51 are lies circulated to divert attention from Goverthing.

However, it is believed the scene in the final episode of the television show St. Elsewhere, where the character Tommy Westphall shakes a snow globe, is a reference to the snow globe factory found in Goverthing.

In the television show Heroes, the character Sylar gives his mother a snow globe, possibly explaining the origins of the characters' super powers.